Random thoughts on the election cycle starting up again

Or, “Why I won’t vote for Republicans or Democrats for anything, ever.”

Call me tinfoil, but I don’t think the majority of either party gives a damn about social issues or the environment. Republicans talk a big game about god, guns and gays, and Democrats talk a big game about… well, often those same three things, but politicians tend to be liars and there’s no reason to believe the bloodsuckers on either side of the aisle mean the shit they’re trying to sell us. Social issues are the football partisan politicians kick back and forth to distract citizens from the real game going on behind the bleachers. Not that I’m saying issues like marriage rights and the environment aren’t important… but frankly, I think the Dems purposefully get in the way of real progress on those issues just as much as the Reps (mostly by dragging their feet and letting the Reps have their way whenever it seems the Dems might get ahead).

And sure both parties seem to have their true believers (Tea Party candidates, for example, though not the people funding them). But my guess is for the most part it’s all a farce. The longer it takes for a real political revolution in this country, the more both wings of our one-party system benefit from the constant escalation of partisanship. It’s classic divide and conquer; these people read their Sun Tzu. The voters spend their time divided on issues like weed and which genitals can go where and what language you have to hear someone else speaking ahead of you in the line at the DMV, and meanwhile the D’s and R’s both make money hand over fist killing people of the wrong religion overseas, taking bribes to approve medications that wind up on class-action lawsuit commercials a few years down the road, and letting Wall Street make record profits pretending money on paper is the real thing while the national infrastructure collapses. You know, situation normal: all fucked up.

I feel like the Republicans tend to be closer to the “real” government in their public doings, which is to say they’re obviously a front for the military-industrial complex and the intelligence community. Likewise, the Dems seem to be mostly controlled opposition; they talk a big game when they’re the minority party but as soon as they have power they pull the same shit as the Reps, but with better PR. But both parties half-ass it when it comes to social issues, be it banning gays or guns, because the goal seems to be ensuring nothing definitive ever gets done. We are Schrodinger’s electorate, kept in a constant state of flux and unable to ever totally resolve any issue of actual import, a passive audience to a parade of hot button issues that bleed into one another and never go anywhere. Everything is arguing, forever, probably by design.

So frankly, it doesn’t matter who you elect because the people in charge will do what they want on the international scene while the citizens endlessly circle the same local airstrips without ever touching down. If you doubt that, consider that liberal savior and purveyor of hope Barack Obama is well into his second term and Gitmo’s still open, drone strikes have significantly increased since Bush was in office, the PATRIOT Act is still alive and well… Anything the suits in charge behind the scenes actually care about, the machinery of eroding the Bill of Rights and ensuring endless war as a business plan, is the same or worse than it was 8 years ago under Bush. But boy have marriage equality and legal weed been excellent distractions.